PROFESSOK OWEN ON INDIAN CETACEA. 25 



if even the proportions of the rostral part of the skull (PI. IX. fig. 1, 2i' 22) did not show- 

 that it belongs to a different section of Uelphinidw^. The present part of a Cetacean 

 skeleton, as the skulls of those species, figured in Pis. IV. VII. VIII. demonstrate, affords 

 better grounds for comparison and specific determination than do coloured drawings of 

 the entire animal, however accurate, — the number of skulls of ascertamed species in 

 home-museums, or otherwise accessible, being much greater than entire and stuffed spe- 

 cimens of the Cetacea, which rarely give the natural contour of head or body. 



The animal from which this skull was taken was thrown ashore in the harbour of 

 Vizagapatam in too decayed a state to be figured, and was noted as a " small kind of 

 Porpoise " by Mr. Elliot, who fortunately secured the present evidence of the species, 

 which is now preserved in the British Museum. 



The following are the dimensions of the skull ; — 



inches, lines. 



Length 11 



Breadth, greatest, across zygomata 7 4 



From the back of occipital condyle to antorbital process of malar bone 7 6 



From the antorbital process of malar to anterior end of premaxillary 4 8 



From the back part of nostrils to do. do. 7 6 



These dimensions show that in the shortness of the " facial " as compared with the 



" cranial " part of the skull the species agrees with the section of Belphinidw, including the 



Grampuses and Porpoises, for which Cuvier proposed the subgeneric name Phocwna^, 



and which, in his ' Ossemens Fossiles,' tome v. part i. (1823), he distinguished as 



" § 2. Les Dauphins a tete obtuse" (p. 280), from " § 1. Les Dauphins a bee" (p. 275) 



{Delphinus, proper)^ 



The number of Delphinidce with obtuse heads or short jaws, which have since been 

 observed, have manifested so many minor modifications in the relative size,, shape, and 

 number of the teeth, in the relative size and length of the jaws, in the formation of the 

 bony palate, in the extent of anchylosis, and the forms of processes, &c., of the cervical ver- 

 tebree, that numerous subgenera have been founded on these characters. Nevertheless, 

 as each additional kind of blunt-headed Dolphin tends to exemplify the gradational 

 tendency of these modifications, the benefit to zoology of the additional quasi-geneiic 

 names is doubtful ; and I shall refer the present skull, which appears to me to belong 

 to an undescribed species, to the Phoccena brevirostris, as a member of the section of 

 Cuvier's Phoccence, characterized by conical teeth, in which its nearest alliance appears 

 to be with the Phoccena globiceps, Cuv.* 



' The following is Mr. Elliot's note respecting this specimen:—" August 1852. Got the skull of a porpoise 

 which one of the fishermen foimd dead at the mouth of the Vizagapatam river. He caUed it ' Ganumu,' and 

 described it as having a rounded head, without beak, colour black or dark above, white below ; perhaps a 

 Phocceiui or Glohicephalits." 



= Begne Anim. tome i. p. 290 (1829). ' Ibid. p. 287. 



* Ibid. p. 290 ; Annales du Museum, tome xix. ; Ossem. Foss. tome v. part i. p. 290, tab. 21. pis. 1, 2, 3, tigs- 

 11,12,13. 



VOL. VI. PAKT I. ^ 



